Breaking Promises
by KeyKnows
Summary: Kratos knew he wasn't going to be able to love any other women after Anna died. Yuan promised Martel that he was never going to love any other women but her. No one said anything about a man. Kruan.


_Hi guys~!_

_I don't own Tales of Symphonia._

_You must know my native language is not English, so there will be mistakes but I hope the story to be understandable and enjoyable._

* * *

[Breaking] Promises

The first time it occurs to him is little after they have become angels; when Mithos losing his sanity at the sorrow of his sister's death slowly becomes a reality and not a possibility.

Mithos is building a city in the skies, getting people to work for him, making himself a legend a becoming his sister into a goddess.

Meanwhile, Yuan mourns in silence. Wondering painfully what would Martel think, what she would say at the sight of his brother transforming into something unrecognizable.

He hasn't cry, even if he feels the base of his world trembling and the tears itching in the corners of his eyes. It's maybe because he has learned to hide his emotions, because emotions are a disadvantage in the battlefield.

But they aren't in the battlefield anymore, the war is over thanks to a tearful hero and he has no reasons to conceal.

Or it's maybe because he has blue wings coming out his back.

Still he doesn't cry. It feels disrespectful, to watch the world, the worlds, spin with dry eyes and tight fists, like earth itself shouldn't be tearing apart at the lost of its more devoted daughter.

Even if the earth isn't opening to devour men, elves and half-elves equally (it should, he knows it should, this world didn't deserve her but take her all the same), even if his eyes are sand and his hearts melts away into that desert, he'd like to stay here.

He'd like to stay here, in this moment of time. He knows he lacks the power to go back, to reverse what had happened, but maybe the gods, if they are any apart from his goddess, maybe they could allow him this. To stop him from moving along the world, to stay here, now, when he can cry silently and his mourn is respected and he doesn't have to deal with the consequences of Martel's death or Mithos' actions.

Mostly he would like to stay because he knows he wouldn't stay alone.

Kratos also cries in silence, not only because of Martel but for the lost of his student and the spiral of madness he's throwing himself into. Kratos blames himself, at least for Mithos´ poorly choice actions.

It's not Kratos' fault, Yuan knows, but doesn't have the strength to tell him, he's so occupied trying to bear his own pain, he doesn't have time to bear with someone's else.

He'd like to stay. Here, when he's not that alone.

Days pass, his heart sinks, Mithos builds castles on sand, Kratos remains silent.

Years pass, and it's now inaccurate to say it happened shortly after Martel died, but years pass and years become a glimpse of eternity so it doesn't really matter if it happened the next day, the next week, the next century, the next millennium: it hurts the same every day.

[He always knew years will eventually look like a glimpse of eternity, the elf's blood in his veins proving itself as a curse once again as the time becomes, somehow, meaningless. Now are wings on his back the ones cursing him]

It happens, nevertheless, or more precisely it doesn't.

It's a thought, a mere idea that comes to his mind as he contemplates treason, a vague set of words that never forms completely.

And, _Oh, Martel_, what a lonely soul he has become, and _Oh, My Goddess_, forgive me for I have sinned.

It occurs to him that the only constant in his life, in his so long, so lonely, so meaningless life, it's Kratos.

Maybe he should make him even more constant.

And it's not a romantic thought; it's not a thought out of love. It feels like selfishness, like egoism, like something to cling to while the world is, still, trembling down. It never stopped trembling down since Martel's death.

He thinks about Martel, like he always does even if he tells himself he shouldn't, and thinks about finding her lifeless body laying in the dirty land that was not worthy of holding her, and thinks about touching her cold hand and feeling that coldness reach his soul. He thinks about himself murmuring incomprehensible words, promises about a land without war, about a peaceful world (not about revenge because she wouldn't want it even if the words burn his tongue), about _not any other woman, but you_.

It happens, anyway, in his mind, in his unthinkable thoughts.

He descends to the world, to this earth she loved so much and this earth that took her so early.

He descends to the world, wondering if he should have told him; about his treason, about his plans, about the thought that wasn't exactly there but stayed long enough for him to ponder it.

He descends, both literally and figurative.

When his feet touch the ground his eyes slip unconsciously to the sky and, for the first time in a very, very long time, he doesn't think of Martel while he does.

He thinks of Kratos, with a little less of selfishness and a little more of worry.

A little less of friendship.

* * *

The world, reality itself has, somehow, reconstructed.

At least this little reality, this tiny world, this insignificant piece of _everything_.

Kratos thought the world was never going to be whole again. Not after Martel's life being taken, not after Mithos becoming Yggdrasil. Not after Yuan keeping secrets.

But, thanks to a miracle (and he doesn't believe in miracles at all because in this world, in this reality, himself, Mithos and Yuan are the ones that provide them to the mortals walking the land) it has happened.

It's the miracle of love, it's the miracle of life, it's the miracle he doesn't deserve, and maybe Martel in her slumber is indeed a goddess, because he cannot think of anyone else willing to offer him this miracle, this chance.

He has failed enough already, and yet there it is.

A miracle, he thinks, every time Anna smiles, every time Lloyd laughs, every time he kisses her, every time he hugs him, every time. Every single day becomes a miracle.

He recalls the time when two worlds were one. He rarely does, little to remember with pleasure is there, at the war, but he does it anyway and thinks about Yuan smiling like an idiot and Martel smiling him back with a special way she always reserved for him.

This is how he should have feel, he thinks, like every day was miracle even if they were constantly at the run, and even if they saw horrible things, even if they did horrible things. Every day must had feel like a miracle, like a divine gift.

Then he remembers how much Yuan changed after Martel died, always mourning about what was not. He changed too. Mithos wasn't Mithos anymore.

He swears that he will never let something like that happen. He swears, but also asks to the mystic force that granted him this miracle in the first place, for something like that to never happen to his family.

Even if there are risks, even if Anna's life is already proclaimed by the exsphere in her hand, even if they are constantly hiding, for three long and short years, he believes with his whole heart, that heart he thought dead and unworthy, he believes in the durability of this miracle.

But the world, reality itself, deconstructs.

And this little reality, this tiny world, this insignificant piece of _everything_, shatters and goes to reunite with the rest of the _everything_ that is not whole.

And _oh, Martel_, what a pitiful being he is and _oh, my Goddess_, forgive me for I have sinned.

And Oh, Anna…

The miracle is gone and so is his strength, his will, the humanity he thought capable of taking back.

And so is everything that made him alive.

He ascends, into this sky where no goddess will embrace him, into this sky where Anna is not, where Lloyd is not.

He ascends into this empty, sick, fake sky.

He ascends with blood in his hands and void in his heart.

He ascends and when his feet touch the immaculate surface of _heaven_, he looks down, even if he really can't see the earth beneath him.

He ascends and stays there; where miracles are no more and so isn't lose.

Years pass, his heart slowly becomes stone, Yggdrasil is waiting to put his plans on action and Yuan is not there as much as he should.

It occurs to him after a meeting, when Yggdrasil was making the last preparations for the main event and Yuan was there but wasn't really.

It occurs to him how lonely both of them are.

It occurs to him how less lonely they could be.

And it's not a romantic thought, it surely hasn't been born out of love and it actually makes him feel ashamed. It sinks into his chest and rips apart the little he has left of human decency because he cannot do that to his friend. He _cannot_ think, he's not supposed to consider doing that to his friend: to use his misery to settle his own soul.

He remembers Anna, even thought he says to himself he shouldn't in order to keep his sanity, and remembers her deformed body laying in the dirty land that was so kind to let them meet paths, remembers his bloody hands clinging to something that wasn't there anymore, and he remembers himself crying with all his might over a blood-spattered baby shoe and he remembers running away, unsure if he was fleeing from the Desians or from the evidence of his crime.

He remembers himself breaking, unable to breath but breathing anyway [And why?! Why should he be allowed to breath?!]. He recalls the warm of his heart slowly slipping away and murmuring _not any other woman, but her_.

And he's sure it will always be like that, that he will never be able to love again, let alone to love a woman once more. He knows, he lacks the humanity to do so.

He stays here, then, in this destroyed reality, above this tiny dying world, in the middle of the everything that means nothing. Here where he can pretend he doesn't feel, where no one will dare to ask if is that so.

He thinks about Yuan, sometimes, about their shared experience, their shared pain; about the friendship that slips away.

* * *

It happens, anyway, and when it happens it almost feels like it doesn't.

Not because the evidence isn't there, not because they're denying what just took place, but because the world isn't falling apart.

It's difficult to tell how it exactly came about, how they took the decision to just send it all to hell, and to just _if this is how it will end so bet it_, and to just _fuck it._

They know they shouldn't, because the next Regeneration is close, the Chosen of Mana is about to be sixteen, they will become enemies (and Kratos pretends he doesn't know and while he may not know everything he _knows_), and the world might end up more doomed than before or Martel might walk out of his tomb.

They know they shouldn't, because there is so much that depends on both of them, they don't have time nor right to this kind of pitiful sentimentalism.

Nevertheless they let it happen. They make it happen.

And _how_ is not really that important but _what_.

It may look easy to tell, what happens is physical act. What happens are wet kisses [and if they weren't so sure of being unable to cry they would think they tasted salty], what happens are greedy hands clinging to whatever they grabbed [even if there's nothing to cling inside them], what happens is physically painful but so, so _sweet_.

By the time they are done the earth isn't shaking, and the oceans are not drying and the land is not burning. The world stays still, like watching them with content, expecting for something to actually break.

But nothing breaks, not in the world around them and surprisingly not inside them…probably, they think, because there is nothing left to shatter.

And they don't really talk about it afterwards but they have this silently arrangement about not letting happened again.

The End of the world is near. The Regeneration of the world is near.

And they shouldn't, not again.

But it happens, they let it happen.

Days pass and they find themselves too weak to stop, too weak to say no, too weak to go back at their loneliness, too weak to accept this is not going to last.

Even so they don't make the slightest attempt to stop, they just pretend it means nothing, they just pretend they don't look forward their encounters; they pretend that their death hearts doesn't start beating again at each other sight.

They pretend, they pretend…

The Regeneration of the world is near. The End of the world is near.

And _Oh, Martel, [Oh, Anna], Oh, My Goddess_, forgive me for I have sinned.

The time comes and Kratos knows who is going to stand against him in this journey, and Yuan knows how he must stand against in this journey.

There are not goodbyes, there are not apologizes, in part because Kratos _doesn't know_, in part because doing so wouldn't mean anything.

While Kratos descends he looks at the distance and closes his eyes and lets the last grasp of feeling sink in his heart before shutting it out.

_And, Oh, Anna._

While Yuan gives his last orders to his men he looks and the distance and closes his eyes, enjoying for the last time a feeling he's going to kill. Literally.

_And, Oh, Martel._

_Oh, My Goddess._

Forgive me for I have loved.

* * *

_A silly part to me wants to believe this is awesome, the other part of me slaps me because this is horrible._

_Anyway, I just got Tales Of Symphonia Chronicles a few days ago and while I was playing I just got obsessed with it all over again and then I came to look for fanfictions and then I said myself "you should write one, it's not like you're gonna mess up with the personalities and screw it up" so I wrote and screwed up, but anyway._

_It's actually a fortune that I didn't know what fanfiction was ten years ago…_

_I have the impression that it doesn't really seem like Kruan, right? :v I told you I fucked up! _

_I hope you've enjoyed it! Every comment is appreciated!_


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